Sonic the Hedgehog is a series that has existed since the early ’90s. The first game introduced only a few characters—basically, Sonic and Dr. Robotnik. Subsequent instalments added more characters to the series, from Sonic’s allies to his enemies.
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This helped make the Sonic universe much bigger, to the point where people made TV shows and movies based on the series. That wouldn’t really be possible if the series still only consisted of two characters. This begs the question, though, how many characters are in the Sonic series in total? Here is the answer to that question.
There Are 98 Characters In The Sonic Series
98 different characters have been featured in the Sonic video games. This doesn’t include those who only appear in the movies or TV shows. However, it does include every protagonist, antagonist, and minor character in the games. This isn’t just the Sonic titles, either, as any game within the Sonic universe counts, such as Shadow The Hedgehog.
The number only accounts for actual characters. Enemies like Crabmeat haven’t gone towards the number because there are countless of them throughout the games that are interchangeable from one another. Therefore, the original game only had two characters, Sonic and Eggman. Tails didn’t debut until Sonic The Hedgehog 2.
Transformed versions of the characters aren’t counted separately from the originals. Therefore, the likes of Neo Metal Sonic or the werewolf version of Sonic haven’t been counted.
Others that don’t count include Tiara Boobowski and Rocket Metal Sonic because they never actually made it into a released game. Rocket Metal Sonic does feature in the intro video for Sonic The Fighters for a couple of seconds, but he’s not actually in the game.
Both Metal Sonic and Mecha Sonic count towards the total, as they are two different characters, even if it’s easy to confuse them. The same goes for Metal Sonic and Metal Sonic 3.0.
There isn’t a Metal Sonic 2.0 seen in the series, except for an additional outfit in Sonic Rivals.
There Are 4 Hedgehogs In The Sonic Series
The series revolves around a blue hedgehog, but Sonic isn’t the only member of his species that features in the games. In fact, there are four of them, as Sonic is joined by Amy Rose, Shadow, and Silver.
The robotic ones don’t count, as they’re simply bots made to look like hedgehogs instead of actually being hedgehogs.
Naturally, Sonic was the first of the hedgehogs to be introduced. After him, Amy Rose was the next one to be added to the series, as she first featured in 1993’s Sonic CD. Shadow wasn’t introduced until 2001’s Sonic Adventure 2, and Silver made his debut in the infamous Sonic 06.
Despite her early arrival, Amy Rose hasn’t starred in her own significant game. Yet, there has been a game where Shadow serves as the titular protagonist, meaning he’s the only hedgehog outside of Sonic to get his own main game in the series.
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